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Would you trust yourself with infinite wealth? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 1 day ago by atotayo@lemmy.zip to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Let's say that you have an opportunity to gain billions to fix the society from the top. Do you think that you would keep your integrity and use your money for the greater good, or that you would be corrupted by your power?

If so, would you still accept the offer knowing that you would just make the situation worse?

And if you believe in yourself, how would you try to convince an hypotetical entity to give you this wealth?

To avoid regrets let's say that if you decline the offer your memory about the deal gets erased.

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[–] apotheotic@beehaw.org 1 points 3 hours ago

I think I would be fine. I already have limited wealth and I'm directing a significant portion of it to the betterment of the world around me. If my wealth/income increased tenfold (as an example) I don't think I'd be able to find a use for more than, idk, 15-20% of the additional money? So I'd just heavily ramp up the funds going to charities and local causes.

Extending this out to the infinite wealth scenario, I'd be able to help more causes so I'd need to find out which charities are actually putting money to use for what they say they are, extend my mindset beyond local causes and to the whole globe. Almost certainly drop some fat stacks into buying out basically every fossil fuel corp and start the process of getting that shit phased out. Sure I make some terrible people rich(er) in the short term with the buyouts but fuck it, the environment needs to be prioritized.

How I'd convince this hypothetical entity? Idk, probably just explain all of the above and I guess show some hard data on my track record for this. If the entity is determined to put the money in the hands of someone who is going to do good, either I'll be good enough or I won't.

If its not infinite and "just" billions then I'm probably going to funnel about half of it into local (national) causes and the other half into affecting what positive change I can worldwide. Process for convincing the entity remains the same.